Coroner rules elderly patient who went missing from Queensland hospital likely died of dehydration

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A coroner has ruled an elderly hospital patient who went missing from a Queensland hospital more than two years ago likely died from dehydration. Peter Roach was in the Rockhampton Hospital in 2023. He was deaf, non-verbal and suffered from dementia when he left the ward and was not reported missing for hours. His body has never been found. His family, along with advocacy groups, are calling for change.

Transcript

00:00Rod Roach never got to say goodbye to his older brother Peter. Two years ago the

00:09dementia patient walked out of the Rockhampton Hospital never to be seen

00:13again. Unbelievable really because he was a bit of a wanderer and he was still

00:19able to get out. The 80 year old had been in hospital for two months when he left

00:24the ward while staff were responding to an emergency. He wasn't reported missing

00:30for hours. An air, water and land search was launched but his body was never found.

00:35There's no closure, not at all. After walking through town he headed east and

00:41was last seen crossing a bridge in Rockhampton's rural outskirts. The

00:47central coroner has now ruled he died from dehydration saying very likely he

00:52would have succumbed within a short period of time after he was last seen

00:56alive. The tragedy has prompted the hospital to roll out airlocks and

01:01automatically locking doors on certain wards. Not only are we focusing on

01:05infrastructure but also our assessment processes, diversional therapists that

01:10support these type of patients. Yet it hasn't prevented similar cases. Margaret

01:16Carville went missing from the Rockhampton Hospital emergency department a year ago

01:20and this year Edward Camille wandered outside Gladstone Hospital after

01:24surgery. Both short-stay patients had Alzheimer's and were eventually found

01:30unharmed. The context of the other two patients are completely different

01:35environments. We look at the more generic lessons learned from these moments in

01:39time. A hospital is not a prison so we cannot lock the hospital down. Dementia Australia

01:45warns the problem is a national one and partly stems from the lack of aged care

01:50beds. It says hospitals are not designed for patients with a cognitive impairment

01:55to stay long term. It recommends quiet spaces in hospitals for patients to

02:01regroup, closely monitoring food and drink intake to prevent things like urinary

02:06tract infections and more staff training. Simple introductions and explaining what

02:11you're there to do can not only help familiarise the person with who you are and

02:16what you're doing but also ground them in the environment that they're in.

02:20While any change is too late for his brother, Rod Roach wants increased hospital

02:25security in the hope others won't experience his pain. I don't want anyone to

02:34go through a loved one walking out of a hospital and never be seen again. It's not a good feeling.

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